I was very excited to learn that a fellow Godwin researcher might have found a relative to submit DNA to test against other conflicting or proposed lines. She is descended from a family that often gets mixed up with my own family, or at least the family I am trying to prove relation to.

Our two Nathan Godwins were born in the mid to late 1700s and resided in Sampson Co., NC prior to the turn of the century. My colleague’s Nathan Godwin is reported to be the son of Jonathan and Rachel (Bullard) Godwin, also of Sampson Co., NC. He wrote a will in 1821 and died in Sampson Co., NC in 1823. He was the older Nathan. I believe, however that it is actually MY Nathan Godwin who was the son of Rachel and Jonathan and I have a deed to back it up. My Nathan Godwin removed to Randolph Co., NC about 1800, following the death of Jonathan in 1791 and the sale of his lands by his widow Rachel, and Nathan and Dred Godwin in 1795.

DNA analysis would help us to determine which of the two Nathan Godwins was the real son of Jonathan and Rachel Godwin. First we would need to find a definite descendant of Jonathan and Rachel who has a paper trail, to compare our DNA to. Then we would need two additional samples – one from my colleague’s line and one from my own line. My family’s DNA has already been submitted and has matched up with 6 other NC Godwin lines. How exactly they are related is yet to be determined. I got my colleague to agree to submit her family’s DNA.

However, then I remembered something: Her ancestor was reported to be descended from the older Nathan Godwin who left a will in 1821. In the will, he mentioned her ancestor’s name – Handy Godwin – a grandson, son of Nathan’s daughter, Tressie Godwin. I found court documents against this Tressie Godwin for 4 children she had out of wedlock. In 3 of the 4 cases, the fathers were named, however, the children were not named. One of those men named did happen to be a Godwin, but we are not sure if he sired my colleague’s ancestor or not.

When finding family members to participate in DNA studies you must make sure that they are a true descendant of that surname. In this case, meaning their father must have been a Godwin. It is not enough that my colleague’s ancestor, Handy was a Godwin. He had been given his mother’s surname. We don’t know who his father was. Of course, if my colleague were interested in finding out who Handy’s father was, she could go ahead and get the DNA submitted and compare it against possible surnames (perhaps against the two other men mentioned in the court cases).

So now I need to locate another heir of the older Nathan Godwin’s line to compare my family’s DNA against in order to prove or disprove relation to him and/or to Jonathan and Rachel Bullard Godwin.

This is a letter I sent out to all of the descendants of Elijah Godwin (1801-1884):

Update on my grandfather’s Godwin DNA test (to the descendants of Elijah Godwin):
As you know back in Nov my grandfather, Larry Godwin, submitted his DNA to the Goodwin/Godwin DNA Surname Project. I just wanted to remind everyone that all of the descendants of Elijah Godwin are represented by his DNA test. You do NOT have to submit your own test because if you are a Godwin male, then you will have the same exact y-chromosomal DNA as he does! Y-chromosomal DNA is what is passed from father to son each generation. Each family has its own set of mutations that occur that also get passed from generation to generation – these mutations are tested and recorded by companies like family tree DNA and they distinguish between family lines.
My grandfather’s 25-marker DNA test was a 100% match to the DNA of the FIRST group of Godwins in the results table http://www.worldfamilies.net/surnames/goodwin/results. Our ID number is G-43

For a 25 marker test match, there is a 90% probability that the descendants of Elijah Godwin share a common ancestor in the last 10 generations with the other 5 lines above.

Elijah is the last known ancestor we can prove to be descended from. It is my belief that Elijah was the son of Nathan Godwin who was the son of Jonathan Godwin, b. 1740, md. Rachel Bullard, however this is widely disbelieved by other Godwin researchers.

So now all we have to do is try to find paper trails of familial connections with these other 5 Godwin lines of NC.

There is one other Godwin who submitted a 37-marker test to this project. My grandfather can upgrade his test to a 37 marker test and compare against the other Godwin to tighten the window of relationship. If the two 37-marker tests come back with a 100% match, then there is a 95% chance we share a common ancestor in the last 7 generations, 90% chance it is within the last 5 generations and 50% that it is within the last 2-3 generations.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

We are still looking for descendants of Wilkinson, Dred, and Wilson Ulysses Godwin to participate in the surname project to see if we can connect them to our line.

In a previous post, I outlined how to search for wills that are housed at the NC State Archives. In this post, I’d like to talk about another collection that is part of the NC State Archives: “The Series of Original Loose Documents of Estate Records.” This collection contains a serious of documents pertaining to the estates of deceased persons in NC. This collection is sorted by county, then alphabetical by last name.

Documents contained in these files include administrator bonds, affidavits, inventory and estate sales receipts, legal proceedings, division of assets to legatees, etc. These files can be reviewed out by filling out a call slip. The call numbers start with a 3-digit prefix assigned to the county of interest. Randolph County’s 3-digit prefix is 081. Then the next 3-digits are assigned to document type. For estates, that number is always 508. The last number of the call number is the box number that contains your ancestor’s file. This last number is left blank on the call slip. You will put your surname on the call slip instead. They will bring you the box that contains the surname for the county of interest. For example, I might find the loose documents of the estate of Abiah Godwin in Randolph County using the following call number: 081.508.5. Box 5 containing the surname Godwin.

Below is an example of documents contained in the file of Abiah Godwin, Randolph Co., NC (In order of appearance in the file):

Receipt of money brought forward from the sale of estate of Abiah Godwin

Page 1 illustrates how much money the administrator of the estate brought before the judge, probably from the sale of items in the estate. The administrator brought in 79 pounds, 3 shillings, and 11 pence. 39 pounds, 6 shillings, and 8 pence were awarded to the administrator for his duties as administrator leaving 39 pounds, 16 shilling, and 3 pence to be divided between Abiah Godwin’s 7 legatees…5 pounds, 13 shilling, 7 pence awarded per legatee.

Settlement of the Estate of Abiah Godwin, Deceased

Page 2 is a scan of what was on the back of the first page. It reads “A settlement of the estate Abiah Godwin, Deceased.”

Receipt of monies owed administrator

Page 3 is a receipt of monies owed to Samuel Godwin from the estate for his duties of administrator.

This weekend I had about 4 hours to work on my genealogy stuff. I was going through some online rootsweb files and I saw that someone had posted information that I had provided to her and did not acknowledge my work. She posted that Nathan Godwin was the father of Elijah Godwin of North Carolina. There are many descendants working on this line and none of them have ever tried to look past Elijah to find his parents. I’ve been working for 2 years on trying to prove who his parents were. And I’ve shared information on the Godwin-Whitlow myfamily.com website hoping to get feedback from folks. Unfortunately, even though the owner of the site has explicitly reminded people NOT to post other people’s information without their permission first, I’m still finding my information posted to the world. I’m not ready to have this information posted and even if I were, I would want to post it myself. So I spent this weekend updating my files, trying to get them presentable to post to the rootsweb worldconnect project for others to view. I like that people are able to post their family trees and that they are backed up on a secure server, but many people don’t put their sources up and that’s frustrating. What good is having the information if you can’t back it up with sources? And then on top of all this, she didn’t even acknowledge my work!